Phase #3 of Gap Filler’s DiversCity: Community Showcase Project has just been installed!

We’ve been working with members of the Nigerian Canterbury Association to create a mancala board. Known as an Ayoayo in Nigeria, mancala is a game that involves moving pieces or seeds from ‘dishes’ usually carved into a piece of wood.

Local wood worker, Jim Goodwin has been the main woodcarver creating the mancala from a giant log that was kindly donated to the project by Tree Tech. The log is part of one of the black poplar trees that was felled in Hagley Park earlier this year.

Dennis Agelebe, President of the Nigerian Canterbury Association says of the project “The Gap Filler organisation is doing wonderful work, we’re really pleased to be involved in creating this AyoAyo game”.

The aim behind DiversCity is to showcase some of our city’s migrant communities and increase their visibility in the city. Frequently, cultural offerings are events which although fun and interesting, are only on for a day or two. These projects offer something of a longer duration.

Where and When

Date: November 2017 to February 2018 Time: Play anytime! Location: Situated on the West side of the Otakaro/Avon River, between Worcester and Hereford Streets

The Victorian state arts entity, Creative Victoria, are supporting ‘Creative Suburbs’ community arts projects all over the state. The Yarra Ranges Council approached Gap Filler to mentor local artists to develop such a project in Lilydale! The three local artists, Kate Baker, Matthew Riley and Troy Innocent, were selected by the Council. Facilitated and enabled by Ryan, the three artists created the Lilllydale Alternative Welcoming Society and a range of associated creative activities such as alternative morning welcomings near the train station in the town centre (think: people with flowers, music, a giant chicken and more!), a footpath-based game (a la Carcassone) and various signage featuring new symbols and icons. And also the curious use of three Ls in Lilydale…Lilllydale?

It was a really satisfying project, a solid process and had fantastic support from the good people at the Yarra Ranges Council.

Christchurch Airport has added two outdoor ping pong tables, previously located in the city, to its outdoor plaza.

The tables had their first public outing near the Bridge of Remembrance and Re:Start as part of Gap Filler’s Ping Pong project which saw three concrete ping pong tables made available for public use in the Summer and Autumn of 2017.

Of the three tables, one was re-located to the Youth Hub (corner of Manchester and Lichfield Streets), with the other two being purchased by the Christchurch International Airport to help liven up its outdoor area and add to its visitor experiences.

The ping pong tables were created by local company C. Lund & Son as part of Gap Filler’s Diverscity: Community Showcase Project which aims to raise the visibility of some of Christchurch’s migrant communities. In this case, the Chinese Cultural Association collaborated on the project by bringing the idea of publicly accessible ping pong to fruition with Gap Filler. The tables received a great deal of use by locals, workers and tourists alike over the five months they were in place

“We’re pleased the ping pong tables are still able to be used by the public” says Damian Doyle, Gap Filler Project Developer. “The airport team is keen to make their public spaces friendlier and active, and we certainly have seen how this can happen. It’s also a cool evolution of the project, given the connections with the Chinese community and the role our airport plays in connecting us to the world.”

“We loved seeing the life Gap Filler’s Ping Pong project brought to the area near Re:START and the Bridge of Remembrance” says Justin Watson, Chief Aeronautical and Commercial Officer at Christchurch International Airport. “We believe the tables will continue to do the same out here. We always want to improve our visitors’ experiences and help make the airport feel like a welcoming and friendly place. We also like the idea of showcasing some of the creative projects, such as those by Gap Filler going on in Christchurch city, to our millions of visitors.”

For the duration of the Ping Pong project in the city, Gap Filler kept a purpose-built shelf under the tables stocked with bats and balls, as well as having a local business (Cosmic Corner and Coffee Therapy) provide sets for borrowing. “Having the bats and balls with the tables was key to them being well-used and it’s great that having the tables somewhere like the airport will allow this to continue,” says Doyle.

The ping pong tables were installed on Tuesday, 26 September 2017, at the airport and are free to play, 24 hours a day.

Year 6 students from Selwyn House School organised a pop-up roller skating event at Spark Park on Hereford Street on Thursday, 14 September. Wonder Wheels is a school project that we supported as part of our LEOTC programme.

The students set up the space during the day before the event kicked off at 4pm. The students came dressed in masks and capes prepared to give roller skating a go on the concrete site. Members of the public were also welcome to stop by and try roller skating from 4 – 6pm.

The event was part of the Selwyn House students’ studies as an Exhibition project; a Year 6 inquiry celebration of the journey towards developing inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who are active, compassionate lifelong learners. Working with Gap Filler as part of their education programme this year, the students identified the need to create a fun family/kid friendly activity in the centre of the city and wanted to bring “some colour” back to the central city of Christchurch. The Year 6 classes from Selwyn House have worked together with Gap Filler, Life in Vacant Spaces and additional professionals, mentors and more to create, design and install a Gap Filler-inspired project in the central city.

“The girls in Year 6 are 10 and 11 years old. It is amazing to see a group of young girls take an interest in adding “life” back into a city which was badly damaged when they were only 2 and 3 years of age” says Jennifer Shepherd of Selwyn House School.

Our Learning Facilitator, Sally Airey says of this event: “The students, responding to a lack of fun free family events in the central city, came up with the idea of holding a skating event called ‘Wonder Wheels’ to activate a central city vacant site. Authentic learning experiences like this provide students with an opportunity to take collective action and create and contribute in a real way to the civic life of our city. We believe that providing practical and creative opportunities for students to contribute to our city will support the next generation of engaged and active citizens and at the same time make a city that is vibrant and fun to live in. We hope that this event encourages others to use this and other vacant sites in creative and fun ways,”

Spark Park (91 Hereford Street) functions as a public space that the owners have made available for temporary public uses through engaging Life in Vacant Spaces. LIVS have brokered access for food trucks, gardens, a small studio/shop and markets in the past.

We’ve had such a great relationship over the years with Denmark. We keep getting the most amazing interns and our interns in 2017 were more of the same.

Natasja and Elin Sofía were in Christchurch for three months to do research for their thesis on the role of place-making in the regeneration of central Christchurch. They were particularly interested in how different actors – civil organisations, commercial actors, and the Crown – were engaged in the place-making of the East Frame-project.

Meet Elin SofíaElin Sofía was born and raised in the Faroe Islands and moved to Denmark to study Anthropology at Copenhagen University in 2012. During her study, she has gained interest in understanding the interrelationship between human beings and the built environment.

During her semester at the University of Iceland, she got interested in social geography through her study of street art in Reykjavik. After this, she figured that she wanted to use her degree in Anthropology to understand the social life in the built environment. Since then she has been working with city planning for the Municipality in Torshavn and is currently working for a non-profit housing organisation in Copenhagen as a student worker.

In her free time, she gets a kick out of challenging herself to learn different types of sports and has recently learned to snowboard and balance on a longboard. Also, she enjoys hiking and wild camping when traveling and if time allows she likes to stay long enough in a place to do some volunteering.

Meet NatasjaBorn and raised in Denmark, Natasja is studying a Masters degree in Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. Since 2015, she has been practicing anthropology at a national research centre for the development of social housing and an anthropological consultancy firm.

Through her studies and work experience, she developed an interest in issues of architecture and urban planning. She has grappled with questions of how modernist architecture affects social life in deprived neighbourhoods and how physical renovations can have a positive social impact. Natasja decided to specialise in the theoretical field of architectural anthropology in her Masters degree to explore the role of architecture in developing democratic cities of a human scale. Coming to Christchurch now is a unique opportunity for her to learn how transitional architecture and community engagement projects might have a role in the longterm redevelopment of cities.

Whenever she gets the chance, Natasja loves to travel around the world. Back in Copenhagen, she spends her free time making ceramics, cooking nerdy food, and doing tae bo and amateur photography.

]]>CitySide: our first work alongside one of the anchor projectshttp://gapfiller.org.nz/news/2017/cityside-our-first-work-alongside-one-of-the-anchor-projects/
Fri, 22 Sep 2017 04:58:52 +0000http://gapfiller.org.nz/?p=31593Something new and exciting has come to the city! And we’ve got our sticky hands all over it.Gap Filler has been experimenting for a long time now with ways our (and other) temporary projects can have long-term community outcomes. Recent projects such as Super Street Arcade and our DiversCity Ping-Pong tables could be permanent features of any cool city, not just short-term disaster recovery. Now, we’re pleased to announce our best opportunity yet to grow some long-term impact: CitySide, a programme of activations in the East Frame while sites are awaiting future development.

It’s the first time in New Zealand that a major developer is partnering with community and social innovators to run a programme of community-building activities at the pre-development stage. The programme will be rolled out over the next 2.5 years and is being largely funded by Fletcher Living. This initiative is a big win for many Christchurch civic groups, who have been advocating for years for more community involvement in and alongside long-term developments.

Gap Filler’s primary role is to facilitate other groups to realise temporary, community-minded projects on the East Frame land, and then to ‘fill in the gaps’ with some of Gap Filler’s own original projects. These projects are specifically trying to explore how the temporary activations can help foster long-term community outcomes in the new development.

CitySide became a reality in November 2017, with the first projects opening, including a temporary youth space with indoor and outdoor activities, run by two local youth organisations; large ‘spray can’ sculptures where local street artists will be running workshops; a relocated and reinvigorated Kakano Cafe; a community-run car park (Good Spot), where all the proceeds support community activities in the neighbourhood; a mini-golf course that explores and reveals the rich history and heritage of the inner city east area; and more.

Stay tuned for regular updates about what’s coming, and all our amazing partners in delivering this programme.

On September 7 2017, students who had been working on arcade games for Super Street Arcade got the chance to test them on the actual public Super Street Arcade system. Game developers from CerebralFix and members of the Gap Filler team were on site to give feedback.

Year 12 and 13 digital technology students from Papanui, Lincoln and Burnside High Schools had been developing these games as part of their school studies and this year since March 2017. This was part of our Learning Experiences Outside the Classroomprogramnme. Students gained NCEA credits for their work.

The students seemed pretty chuffed to give their games a go on the large screen and console and found playing it in this way rather different from a desktop mode of play. They all took away changes and tweaks they needed, to make to their game more playable. So, in this way, it was a really valuable experience to test the games.

After testing, the students had two weeks to refine their games, tweak and fix before the playable games were available for public game play on the Super Street Arcade system across October 2017and during the school holidays. Favourite games were granted more big screen time.

Discover more about your city with OPEN CITY, one of our more recent projects that’s unlocking our city’s secrets.

Open City is a celebration of undervalued, sweet, free things to do in Christchurch. It might be a good climbing tree in the Botanic Gardens, a quirky piece of street art or a great place for a picnic. These are just some of the many little secrets suggested by other locals and visitors which are being shared via a repurposed parking meter in Cathedral Square and a website.

The Open City parking meter will vend you your own Christchurch mystery within the four aves, helping you to get to know your city better! The OPEN CITY website allows you to share your Christchurch secrets with others, and discover secret gems suggested by perfect strangers. The website’s focus is city wide – New Brighton, Beckenham or Bryndwr!

We’re excited to share with you the new game for Super Street Arcade, Space Raiders.

The game features icons of Christchurch such as the Peacock Fountain, the Cathedral and the Tramway Restaurant that players need to try to save at each level. And like the first game for the system, Space Raiders is a two player game that is free to play, 24 hours a day.

Space Raiders’ gameplay means lots of button pressing because of all the firing that’s needed, so it will get you moving! Getting players outside, moving and interacting was one of the reasons for creating the oversize Super Street Arcade in the first place. We hope people really enjoy playing this nostalgia-inducing game, saving Christchurch icons from an alien invasion.

The first game for the Super Street Arcade that ran from December 2016 until June 2017 was Attack of the Cones, designed by local developers CerebralFix. It was played close to 100 000 times across six months with a total of nearly 3 million button presses!

Super Street Arcade will remain in place until later in 2018. Last year high school students studying digital technologies worked on new games for the system as part of CO[DE] CREATE, a Gap Filler educational programme tailored to the Super Street Arcade. These students received mentoring from developers, CerebralFix as part of their studies. You can find out more about this programme here.

Brent from Def Logic for being amazing to work on developing the game with. Jen McBride from JnCreative. CerebralFix (Ollie and Joel) for their support with bits of code and tips. Elliot Blennerhasset for help with high score board.

We’ve been working on this project for a while and we’re excited to say it’s just months away from being live. Open City is all about celebrating the sweet, free things that make Christchurch interesting and special. The project developed from the Gap Filler crew questioning concepts of value and how things are given value in a city. So often, these things are attractions or activities that cost money. We’re really interested in those little things that make the city interesting and different. An amazing tree. A place to feed the ducks. A sweet place to skate.

So we’re developing a project that seeks to celebrate these things, but also share them. It will all centre around a parking meter that vends a different sort of ticket. Instead of a parking ticket, it will vend a ‘sweet, free thing to do.’ And there will be a web element too to this project to allow anyone who wants to to add their sweet free thing to do or to locate things to do this way.

We’re delighted to be working with the All Right? campaign on this project who see lots of alignment with their kaupapa to support Cantabrian’s health and wellbeing. We’re also collaborating with McCarthy and MAKE Collective on the creative side of things, which is ace.

Launch: Phase 1 July, Phase 2 September

We’ll be asking for your assistance with some BETA testing of the project, so stay tuned.